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August 24, 2008

G130: Red Sox 6, Blue Jays 5 (11)

Coco Crisp's home run tied the game in the eighth, Jed Lowrie's second career dong gave the Red Sox a lead in the 11th and Manny Declarmen got the save -- though he needed 26 nerve-wracking pitches -- striking out Jose Bautista with a man on first.

Vernon Wells -- a one-man wrecking crew this weekend (6-for-9, with 3 home runs) -- hit a two-run shot in the first; he also added an RBI double in the sixth.

Burnett had made quick work of the Sox in the first two innings, throwing only 19 pitches, but Boston forced him to throw 32 pitches in the third. With one out, Burnett walked Alex Cora and Crisp, the two guys at the bottom of the order. He got Jacoby Ellsbury on a pop-up for the second out, but Dustin Pedroia blasted AJ's first pitch -- a high and inside 96-mph fastball -- to deep left for a three-run home run.

David Ortiz doubled and Kevin Youkilis singled him in and Boston led 4-2.

Your starting shortstop, third baseman, right fielder, and No. 1 pitcher are out with injuries. One of your young starters was so bad he had to be demoted to Double A. You lost to a division rival, 11-0, yesterday as your other top hurler, Jon Lester, was pummeled and lasted 2.1 innings. Your wild-card lead is teetering.

How are you feeling right about now?

David Ortiz:

We'll be fine, bro. We go through this shit every year. At the end of the day, we'll take another ring with us.

499 comments:

Every time I read something by Nick Cafardo I end up liking him even less. That "surfer-boy" comment about Giles is really uncalled for. Is he so bitter against ALL players he has to shoot cheap shots in every direction?

Plus, when it comes to baseball, he's dumb. Dull and completely devoid of any deeper-than-surface thinking.

In his notes columns, he writes/obsesses about the Yankees a LOT and the only GMs he seems to talk to are J.P. Ricciardi and Brian Sabean. I think he picked the Jays to finish 2nd this year simply because J.P. returns his calls/emails.

Edes's departure gave Benjamin the shot at main beat writer, which is good, but it also meant that Cafardo will hang around the Sox more often.

God, I hate the Rogers Centre. Hate, hate, hate it. Not only is it a grim and depressing place to watch a game, but the Sox always seem to suck balls there. Since the regime change in 2002, the only Sox teams with winning records in Toronto are the '02 team (the hell?) and the two WS teams. So, take that for whatever it's worth (probably not much).

"Your starting shortstop, third baseman, right fielder, and No. 1 pitcher are out with injuries. One of your young starters ... You lost to a division rival ... as your other top hurler ... was pummeled ... Your wild-card lead is teetering.

How are you feeling right about now?

If the Red Sox were my team, I'd feel a sudden attack of agita. ...

Then six paragraphs later:

"We all got excited Friday night when Jason Varitek homered for the third straight game ... We all love Chris Smith's story of perseverance ... Now Daisuke Matsuzaka, a 15-game winner (is he really or are we making it up?) ..."

86spike:Man, up until a couple of days ago, I was convinced that TB would be getting their asses kicked a bit at the end of agust and into September.But it seems like that team has somehow forgotten how to lose, even with serious injuries to their lineup.Unless they go a a uber-skid like the 7-game losign streak around the all star break... I'm not so confident in the Sox taking the division away from them.

Soxfan in Fla:Living down here I have watched them very closely. There have been a number of times that I have wondered how they would react to adversity whether it was injuries of the week long losing streak before the AS break for 2 examples. They have tons of little cross roads this season and barreled right through every damn one of them. I thought they might be in some trouble when Crawford and Longoria went down back to back. Instead Hinske and Aybar have stepped in and hit lights out and Pena has stepped and is now hitting like he was last season. Barring something completely shocking this team is winning the AL East this year. Good for them too. Great story. The people in Tampa should be ashamed of themselves that they only showed up in droves of 15-19K last week when they played 3 against the LAAAAAA. This is a great ball team that is fun to watch.

Skydome with the roof open isn't too bad. Not great, but not awful. On the grim/depressing scale, it's not as bad as some.

MANY Jays fans are awful, tho. They don't seem to know anything about the team or even about baseball. They seem to think their job as fans is to scream at players whose names they recognize.

The constant booing of Eric Hinske is a great example. It's like they saw Red Sox fans booing Johnny Damon on TV (and other examples), so they think "we're supposed to boo former players who now play for rival teams". No matter that Hinske was traded and had no choice in the matter.

It's a blessing that Burnett will probably opt out. Next year the AL East could be crazy, especially if Wieters is the real deal for the Os and they add Teixeira. 5 possible contenders in the same division...

daniel cabrera walks the 1st two to lead off the inning. thats the kind of shit that made leo mizzoni start doing broadcasting after a year as the O's pitching coach. (yes, he still rocks back and forth while doing play by play)

If I can figure who is who, I think Buffy was the one saying that you can't be all amped up 162 games a year. And what Ofer transcribed was someone's reply -- I think they have three guys, Buffy the least annoying so far from what I've heard (not the whole game).

Dice -- NO walks. Only 76 pitches over 5 IP.

But 4-3's a slim margin.

You probably discussed yesterday, but shouldn't we be rooting for the Rays vs. the White Sox? We need either the WSox or the Twins to kind of fall out of it.